


Acts of love

by Lyval



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Beautiful, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Fluff, Married Life, One Big Happy Family, Their Love Is So
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24492058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyval/pseuds/Lyval
Summary: Ciri knows much about love, because her grandparents, the King and the Queen of Cintra, show her what love is through their relationship every day. A collection of times Ciri walked in on them being cute and her finding it mildly embarrassing, as granddaughters do.
Relationships: Calanthe Fiona Riannon & Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, Calanthe Fiona Riannon & Eist Tuirsach, Calanthe Fiona Riannon/Eist Tuirseach, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Eist Tuirseach
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	Acts of love

**Author's Note:**

> Heyy, I found that there were still not enough fanfics about Calanthe x Eist without my beloved King's death, and even though I do have like 4 other Calanthe/Eist works in progress, I still wrote this down on one hot and sunny day because I couldn't get the idea out of my head and I needed them to have a happy, witty and working relationship around little Ciri. I just love their love. Hope you do too! Enjoy :)

Ciri was familiar with love, even though she had lost her parents before she was able to get to know them. Her grandmother, the Queen of Cintra, had taught her everything she had to know about it and more. She felt loved and was surrounded by it in the form of her grandmother's relationship with her husband, the King. They had married on the same day that her parents were wed, and on the day they found out that her mother was pregnant with her.

Not seldom did she walk in on her grandparents doing intimate things she'd rather not have known about, things a granddaughter feels embarrassed to know about. 

On a beautiful summer's evening, when she had been out the whole day and was picking flowers from the cliffy rocks that rimmed the castles masonry to make a beautiful bouquet for the dining hall, she had been on her way to plead her grandfather to tell her tales of his adventures at sea again before dinner. 

She did not know much of her grandfather by blood, the late King Roegner, as her grandmother did not like to talk about him at all and the castle seemed to stay quiet about him, but she loved her grandfather by heart, the new King Eist of Skellige, very much. His scarred big hands and weathered face came from the seas that surrounded the island kingdom he came from where his brother Bran reigned, and it brought him the nickname sea dog at court, which he didnt mind at all. He had spend his youth at sea and became a witty war strategist and skillful captain. His dark appearance of thick black hair and hard eyebrows together with a broad stature fooled the perception one got of him, because underneath the body of the sea dog was the heart of a water puppy that adored his Queen beyond measure, hated fancy parties and royal duties, and found great pleasure in gardening in the parks of Cintra that had bloomed in the most beautiful colors each year since his arrival at court.

That evening, with the bouquet still in hand, Ciri had walked along the cool stone hallways to her grandfather's rooms, where the walls were a deep blue, the carpets on the walls showed naval patterns, and the sheets of the bed were always untidy. From the doors, one could catch a glimpse of the big wooden bed to the right, the thick carpet spun with golden thread and the full length windows hidden behind thick grey curtains. When Ciri found the door to be ajar, she cautiously opened it further until she could see into the room.  
There in the dim light that shone through the open part of the curtains was Eist, lying on the bed with his upper body propped up and exposed. Calanthe was sitting next to him on the bed with her back to the door, rubbing his belly with a compassionate look on her face and talking to him with a tender voice. 

"Oh!", exclamated Ciri, surprised by the scene, and her grandparents turned to the door.  
"Cirilla", Eist said, a smile on his face. "No need to hide. Come here, its alright" 

Ciri, who had run off back into the hallway, slowly approached the door again and glimpsed inside. Both her grandparents were smiling at each other, not embarrassed in the slightest but very amused. She walked into the room looking down, her face a red mess. 

"I'm.. sorry for eavesdropping", she stammered, not daring to look up to not stare at her grandfather's bare chest. Calanthe grinned at Eist, picking his shirt up to cover him so that Ciri would feel more comfortable. 

"Ciri, dear. You did not barge in on any intimate moment. Sit down on the bed with me, I covered Eist"

She did as she was told to, still cautious and unsure what to say. Calanthe rubbed her shoulder. 

"Eist is feeling unwell. He has bellyaches because of the bad crabs he insisted on having for lunch. I was just trying to ease his pain a bit. Your grandfather's dumber than he looks" 

Eist made a face at that, but Calanthe smiled lovingly down at him and gave him a tender kiss on the forehead. He closed his eyes and eased into her touch, and Ciri thought about silently leaving the room to not stirr her grandfather more than he needed right now. 

"Were those crabs really worth it, love?", Calanthe asked, and Ciri laughed. Eist giggled at his granddaughter and playfully hit her arm when he moved his body in the wrong way and his belly hurt worse than before. He breathed out in pain and fell back against the bed, cursing under his breath. Calanthe immediately switched back to concerned wife and went back to patting his belly and stroking through his hair.  
"Oh love", she breathed, kissing his cheek. "I'm so sorry that it does you so much pain. I'll have the fisher jobless as soon as you feel better. Just don't move. It will get better in a few minutes, the tea should do the trick"

Such things happened all the time. Ciri had walked in on them lying in each other's arms in the sun, Eist stroking Calanthe's hair and talking about the garden, or them silently arguing who was better at kissing, though her grandmother loved to admit to Ciri that Eist was a fantastic kisser and she was nowhere near his tongue skills, which made Ciri blush bright red. Dinner was the worst though, as Calanthe usually was not able to dine with them in the morning or early afternoon because of her duty as Queen. Eist, however, didn't partake in those duties so much and was normally found in the garden or at the haven, or very seldomly in his bed chamber, either sleeping or writing letters to Skellige. He had often time to play with Ciri in the afternoon, showing her games or telling her stories about his youth. The day of her mother's betrothal feast was her favourite, because Eist loved to fill the story with more and more vivid details each time, and his eyes always had that shine when it came to the part when Calanthe finally agreed to marry him. 

At dinner time though the Queen always made sure to have her duties over to spend at least that time with her family. They ate at a big table, and as it was usual, the Queen sat on one end while the King sat on the other. Her grandfather had often ranted about that during their strolls through the garden, blaming the tradition on all the Kings that married for riches and land and did not love their spouses, thus banning them to sit the farthest away from them at dinner time, and how they should not obey such a tradition as it was born out of ruthlessness and separated him from his beautiful wife. 

But Calanthe mostly respected that custom, just sometimes allowing her husband to break protocol and sit beside her so that they could whisper things that made the other blush and secretly touch each other's hands or thighs under the table. Normally, they sat 5 meters away from each other, shooting longing looks and kisses over the table, Ciri sitting in between, eager to vanish. 

One time Eist asked Ciri if she wanted to see the stars, showing her hidden stairs that led up to the castle's roof. They could see the night sky from there, and he showed her the stars to the zodiac signs and told her about the planets he had studied. He was the real child of the castle, searching for hidden pathways in the old walls when his flowers, ships and his family didn't need his attention.  
"The secret to a happy life", he had told her, "is to find the perfect wife. Or husband. Someone who can make you laugh and who holds you when you have to cry. Someone who rubs your belly when you are unwell and fights with you side by side. For that, you will have to be the perfect husband for them. Or wife. And I'm not talking about gender roles, Ciri, you can see through me and your grandmother, they sometimes just don't fit. But be the reason your spouse wakes up with a smile and make sure they also go to bed with one. Don't obey all their rules to keep it spicy, but please them enough to not sell you off as a servant to the next kingdom. Marry out of love, not profit. I know your grandmother probably told you multiple times that she married me because of my ships and the profitable alliance with Skellige. That's bollocks. Everyone knows she married me because of my charm. Years long I fancied her, fought her battles and made her laugh, and I proposed more times than a man should have to propose in a lifetime. But I got her in the end, and it was all worth it. I got the right person at my side, and I am the happiest man on the continent. And my biggest wish is for you to become the happiest woman on the continent, in years to come, when me and your grandmother are holding hands below the ground. So make sure you do all the stupid stuff now, because if I had gone after that sea hag that stole my belt and had come back with a missing toe and no clothes on while being married to Calanthe, she would have sold me to Nilfgaard for sure"

Calanthe usually found them when Eist abducted Ciri to those secret places, because she, too, had searched the walls for hidden pathways when she was younger, and she found them that night on the roof. 

Ciri had already fallen asleep in Eist's lap while he was humming old children's songs, when Calanthe approached them from behind, snaking an arm around her husband and placing a kiss on his cheek. He stopped humming the song to kiss his smiling wife, which made Ciri stirr in her sleep and wake up. But like every other child that was too tired to fully gain back their consciousness and open their eyes, she remained in her grandfather's lap to be brought to her bed in his arms later.

She felt Eist shift to make space for Calanthe, who draped her legs and arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder, embracing him like he was embracing Ciri.

"You are a good man, Eist Tuirseach", she heard the weary voice of her grandmother, and then another wet sound that told her they were kissing again.  
"Oh my lovely Queen, how I anticipated your presence and touch tonight", he sighed, followed by another wet suck.

"You know I don't want you to bring her up here and have her slip and fall. I told you just yesterday"  
She spoke in a hushed voice to not wake her granddaughter, but there was firmness in her tone. She removed her head from his shoulder.  
"I did not let her fall. I held her all along. I educated her about the planets and stars", came her grandfather's voice, fully at ease and probably with a smirk on his face.  
"Yes, still you decided to ignore my word and did the exact opposite of what I wanted. Just like yesterday, when you showed her knucklebones"  
"Well, somebody has to show her the fun things in life"

The Queen scoffed and Ciri felt him remove one arm from around her to take Calanthe's hand in his, kissing her knuckles and looking up at her with puppy eyes.  
"I'm sorry", he purred, and Ciri smiled in her sleep, amazed by his sly ways.

"You are not. Else you wouldn't constantly break my rules", she said, still not forgiving him. He brushed over her face with his thumb.  
"My beautiful Queen, I apologize deeply for ignoring your word again. It will not happen again. How can I make this up to you?"

Calanthe sighed, then layed her head back on his shoulder. She would forgive him anything. It was clear that she did not plan on being mad at him for the evening, as her hands were already roaming along his back, suggesting things that didn't need words.  
"I know you will do it again and I know that you are aware of that. You're lucky you are such a handsome scallywag, else I would have sold you long ago to Nilfgaard" 

Ciri grinned at that, as did Eist, and he pressed his lips to Calanthe's and made out with her until both were gasping for air. Much too long for grandparents, Ciri decided. 

"Why is the sleep-grinner still pretending to sleep?", she heard her grandmother say and sighed, opening her eyes.

"Come on, little one. I'll carry you to bed", Eist said, getting up and picking her up with his big arms, Calanthe's hands still tied around his body. They gave each other one last, sweet kiss before he carried Ciri down the stairs, bringing her to bed. 

She knew what followed after. They would cuddle and kiss all night again and have a great mood in the morning, but in the evening Eist would rather rest than play with her and Calanthe would be moody all evening long because of the lack of sleep. Only he could make her smile then, usually wrapping her in a hug and reading to her until she fell asleep. Ciri had often seen him pick her up and carry her to bed then, like he did with her, and she decided that this was another act people did when they loved someone. And though she was often embarrassed by their public depiction of their affection for each other when they were with her, she often prayed to someday find someone who she could love and who would love her back just like her grandparents loved one another.


End file.
